Cyprian was born in AD 210 in northern Africa of Berber descent. He became the bishop of Carthage in 249. He is remembered because of his strong pastoral leadership, his mediating position in the restoration of clergy who denied the faith during persecution, and his writings, especially those on the theology of the church. He was executed as a martyr on September 14, 258.
Cyprian’s primary concern was maintaining the integrity of the Christian faith in the face of many threats. The word integrity speaks to that which is whole, undivided, and/or pure. The church was threatened by the pagan authorities’ attempts to maintain the traditions of the Roman Empire and the subsequent persecution. The church was threatened by heretics and schismatics within. At issue is the Lordship of Jesus Christ and how the Lordship of Christ is manifested in the world through the church. Also, Cyprian was concerned with defending his own integrity as the Bishop of Carthage in light of his decision to go into hiding during the persecution.
Cyprian’s letter To Donatus is a “conversation about salvation” (16) in which his testimony of conversion reveals the sacramental theology of the church. In the waters of regeneration (water baptism) he has received “the second birth from heaven,” by the power of the Holy Spirit which restored him to “a new humanity.” The Holy Spirit has given new life which empowered him and endowed him with the charismatic gifts of prophecy, exorcism, and healing. Water baptism is drinking the Spirit as “overflowing grace” which “bursts forth abundantly” (4-5). Water baptism is not a mere symbolic rite, but a rite endowed with charismatic agency that effects regeneration.
Cyprian was concerned that Christians live in holiness. Because Christians are “a new humanity” they should beware “the social influence of evil [which] seduces people to commit vices” – the gladiatorial games and other forms of entertainment that defile the faithful (8). He presents the Christian life in terms of “spiritual military service” – the believer is a soldier under divine orders. Furthermore, the Christian is “God’s dwelling place” inhabited by the Holy Spirit who “provides a stable guarantee,” the true nature of which cannot be corrupted and transforms the body into incorruptibility (15). Because Christians are reborn – recreated in the Spirit – “we live no longer for the world, but for God” (To Demetrian, 20). In order to maintain our distinction as the people of God in this present age, Christians are bound by “a covenant to keep us together in a common body” (19). The faithful Christian is not threatened by the events of this world, but is established in the “soundness of their faith.” Christians are not citizens of the Empire, rather they are citizens of God’s kingdom and are bound by oath (water baptism) to serve under God’s standard.
It is this Christian radical self-identity that the Roman authorities seek to undermine during the Decian persecution. Furthermore, it is the integrity of Christian self-identity that Cyprian seeks to preserve in his address to the bishops – The Fallen. The confessors suffered because they refused participate in the “sacrifices of sacrilege.” Rather, they proved faithful to the “divine works” of the Eucharist. In their suffering the confessors offered “a glorious gladiatorial performance for God” and entered into the eschatological glory of “Mother Church” (2). The image of “Mother Church” is an alternative human society that challenges pagan Rome.
Cyprian lamented that many Christians “rushed into the Forum” to offer pagan sacrifices which was to feast at “the altar of the Devil” (8). After offering sacrifices to the pagan gods, some Christians sought to return to the Eucharist, only to discover that it did not bring reconciliation, but judgment. Cyprian explained, “The Lord withdraws when he is denied” (26). He asked, “Do you think that you can suddenly gain the forgiveness of God whom you have denied with faithless words?” (35). There is a strong sacramental theology which draws a distinctive line between the Lordship of Christ and the pagan gods of the Empire. Even children who have been defiled by the idolatry of their parents suffer God’s judgment.
The question before Cyprian is how does Mother Church receive those who proved unfaithful during the persecution. If the conditions of reinstatement are lax, then the sacrifices of the confessors are diminished. Further, a lax reinstatement diminishes the unique Lordship of Jesus and the identity of Mother Church as a new humanity. Reconciliation requires prayer with one’s whole heart, voice quivering, with mourning and tears, with unceasing works of righteousness (36). Reconciliation requires extensive repentance and penance. There is no cheap grace here.
The unity of Mother Church is firmly established in Paul’s teaching that the church is the body of Christ. In Cyprian’s mind, the integrity of Christ is at stake. Furthermore, the validity of the sacraments depends upon the unity of the Church and the integrity of the bishops. In my best judgment, the differences between the received text and the primacy text (On the Unity of the Church, 4-5) do not diminish Cyprian’s ecclesiology. He appeals to the authority of Peter as the foundation of the church. He insists that “the episcopate is one, an individual share in which individual bishops hold as owners of common property. The Church is a unity which extends into a plurality…” The unity of the church is established in its source – Jesus Christ. The church is the Mother who gives birth to the faithful and nourishes the faithful (4-5). To be separated from the church is to be separated from God. “He cannot have God as his Father who does not have Church as his Mother” (6). One is born into the church through “heavenly rites of initiation” – that is, the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. Because the sacraments are saving rites, they issue forth from the indivisible Church administered by bishops faithful to the Church. Schismatics and heretics pose just as much a threat to the Church as the pagan gods.
Cyprian is a difficult read for 21st century Pentecostals. Cyprian’s ecclesiology presents the church as a charismatic, relational, and institutional that exists simultaneously in this world and in the world to come. Western Christianity is too often embedded in some sort of nationalism. The ecclesiology of Pentecostals too easily speaks in terms of “churches” rather than “the church.” We give little thought to schism as sinful. We prefer to speak in terms of diversity over unity. In fact, ecumenism is viewed with skepticism, even suspicion. Also, most Pentecostals would find the sacramentalism of Cyprian to be difficult to embrace. Pentecostals have tended to embrace a Zwinglian sacramentalism, or the anti-sacramentalism of the Anabaptists. In Pentecostal Sacraments, I have suggested that Pentecostals might embrace sacraments as charismatic rites in which the believer encounters the active presence of Christ and Holy Spirit, and the church is a sacramental presence of God in the world.
In my view, most Pentecostals have a weak ecclesiology. For decades we have proclaimed that going to church doesn’t save, that church membership is not necessary, it’s all about Jesus. We don’t think of being born in the womb of the Church. So, have we divorced ecclesiology from Christology and Pneumatology? If so, what would an ecclesiology that is fully integrated into Christology and Pneumatology look like? With the decline of church participation post Covid, I’ve noticed more attention being given to participation in a local church being necessary to faithful discipleship. Just as persecution in Cyprian’s time produced as strong ecclesiology, maybe the rapid decline of Church participation in the West will cause a reappraisal of our weak ecclesiology.
One final reflection… reading through On the Lapsed, I wondered “How would I respond to the threat of persecution, to being tortured, or being executed? Would I become a confessor?”
Cyprian of Carthage, On the Church: Select Treatises. Translation and introduction by Allen Brent. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2006.
